Saturday, May 2, 2015

Crocker Art Museum

The Crocker Art Museum is located in the former house of Edwin B. Crocker, a wealthy Sacramento lawyer. Edwin bought the property in 1868 and had the existing building extensively renovated for his family’s home and a separate gallery constructed to hold the family’s art collection. When Edwin died in 1875 his wife, Margaret, gave the city the gallery and the art collection. Shortly before her death in 1900 she donated the mansion to the Peniel Rescue Mission. In 1911 Crocker’s daughter, Jennie, contributed $10,000 to the city so that the mansion could be bought and used along with the gallery to display the art collection. As the collection grew over the years even more room was needed so a modern addition was added in 2010.
The Crockers collected 16th and 17th-century Dutch, Flemish and Italian paintings and contemporary California paintings. The museum has added ceramics, African, Oceanic, Asian and American art. We especially enjoyed the modern art galleries. The mansion is a work of art itself with wonderful architectural details.
The museum is accessible. A couple of the changing exhibit galleries have heavy doors and plush carpeting but the rest of the galleries have push button doors or no doors and hard flooring.

Most of the parking is angled on the street parking. Very small RVs and vans will fit. We found two spaces together along the curb at the corner of 2nd St. and O St. RVs will also fit in the parking lot at the corner of 2nd St. and N St. by using two spaces. Museum38.5769, -121.50682